One of prominent themes of the 2012 Major League Baseball season is change. And Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun would love to change the subject that is now his shadow. Did he or did he not take performance-enhancing drugs?

Only Braun knows for sure, and he’s not saying.

Actually, he has sworn up and down that he didn’t. The fact his 50-game suspension was overturned is proof enough. But it came on a technicality only a Tour de France winner could love. Until Braun tells “the real story,” his exoneration will smell like the original O.J. verdict.

“What a joke,” one player told the New York Daily News.

Braun’s appeal was based on a chain-of-custody delay. The collector took the sealed urine sample home over the weekend instead of immediately dispatching it to the lab.He said there weren’t any FedEx offices open within 50 miles. Braun’s lawyers said at least five offices within 5 miles were open.

Whatever the case, it’s impossible to get past one thing: The doping control officer, Dino Laurenzi Jr., had collected more than 600 samples for MLB, as well as other organizations, apparently without incident.

The sample was in a tamper-proof vial. The lab chief in Montreal testified that there were no signs of tampering.

“We spoke to biochemists and scientists and asked them how difficult it would be for someone to taint the sample,” Braun, the reigning NL MVP, said in a news conference. “They said if they were motivated, it would be easy.”

But what would motivate Laurenzi to taint Braun’s sample? Is he a closet St. Louis Cardinals fan? Did Barry Bonds come over and inadvertently fill a beaker for old times’ sake? A week into spring training, Braun said people who know the “real story” support him. He then said that story would probably never come out.